A woman in her 60s was knifed to death Wednesday night, July 3, in a rampage in London’s Russell Square by a 19-year old man, who injured another six people before police brought him down with a Taser gun.

The death toll from Islamist terror in Europe is rising at a frightening rate to 443 in the past three years – from 4 in 2014 - two of them Israelis, shooting up to 267 in 2015 and 172 in the first seven months of 2016 – equal to an average of 24.5 per month. More than 3,000 people were moreover injured in the last three years.

The Belgian government some weeks ago hired an Israeli security firm to inspect security arrangements at the Zaventem airport of Brussels. The experts, who were asked for advice on improvements, submitted initial recommendations for urgent upgrades. However those improvements had not been installed by Tuesday, March 22, when Islamist terrorists hit the airport.

Brussels was hit by two major terrorist attacks Tuesday, March 22, which left at least 34 dead and 200 injured. Fourteen people were confirmed dead, 35 injured in two explosions before 8 a.m. Tuesday, March 22, inside the departure hall of Brussels airport, caused by a suicide bomber and originating at the American Airlines desk. Israelis among the casualties. Belgian media report that shots and shouts in Arabic were heard at the time of the blasts.

The Islamic State’s illicit oil trade remains profitable like their other nefarious businesses. But their cash began to dry up after overspending on three months of costly foreign terrorist operations and heavy investments in developing hi-tech weapons and WMD.

Initial interrogation of the five detained accomplices of Natash Melhem, the triple Tel Aviv murderer who died in a gunfight Friday, Jan 8, revealed that they were part of an Islamic State cell. The special police force which ran him to earth told him to surrender and shot him dead when he opened fire. Disabling rather than killing shots might have left a living source of information on what was clearly a meticulously planned terror attack by a gunman with a support team. So why did the Yamam marksmen choose to kill him instead of injuring him and taking him alive?

The failure of a massive police-security forces manhunt to catch Nashat Melhem, five days after he murdered three people in Tel Aviv on Jan. 1 inspired a 20-year old Palestinian from the Jerusalem village of Issawiya to become the “second Melhem” – this time in Herzliya. He was quickly captured - but only after the Tel Aviv searchers were forced to detach a large team to hunt for the copycat terrorist in this upscale town before he struck. Police chief Rinnie Alsheikh broke his silence to report that the search had spread to outside Greater Tel Aviv.

The geography of the six Paris locations targeted by terrorists Friday night points to precise advance planning in support of a primary target, namely, French President Francois Hollande, while at the same time sowing bloody havoc in the French capital, frightening tourists away and shaking the French governing system to the core. The outrage which took an estimated toll of 127 to 153 lives took place without warning from any French intelligence agency. Saturday, the French president accused ISIS of an act of war against his country.

French police are preparing to place areas of Paris under curfew Friday night as the city comes under multiple terrorist attack with at least 158 dead, including 118 hostages executed. French President Francois Hollande said that in view of the unprecedented assault, he has ordered French borders closed and the army mobilized. Three locations were initially targeted but there may be twice as many.

ISIS targeted and struck two foes, Russia and Egypt, with a single Russian-made missile. Neither wants to admit this. The Islamists fearing retribution went to ground after shooting down the Russian airliner, but there was none.

The British Cobra (emergency cabinet) decision of Wednesday, Nov. 4, not to send airliners to or from Sharm El-Sheikh, where 20,000 British tourists are stranded, further strengthens the assumption that the Russian Metrojet Flight 9268 was downed over Sinai Saturday by a terrorist missile. So far, the drawn-out deliberations and prevarications by officials in several countries regarding the crash of the Russian plane are meant for one purpose: to gain time for doing nothing about ISIS in Sinai.

The Moroccan gunman, Ayoub Qahzzani, 26, who injured three passengers on the Amsterdam-Paris fast train Friday, Aug. 21, before he was subdued, was one more Muslim extremist known to French intelligence who was nonetheless able to commit an act of terror. debkafile: This selfsame scenario has been repeated time and again in three years since the Toulouse Jewish school outrage. The bravery of two US servicemen and other passengers averted a massacre on the packed Thalys train.

The Crown Prince leads the war on domestic terror, while his deputy heads the war on Yemen. But the latter is also the king’s son and the Yemen war may be easier to crack than the pervasive attraction of young Saudi men to the radical lure of ISIS.

Investigations of the ISIS attacks in France, Tunisia and Kuwait already show that each assailant had accomplices, as terrorist networks and sleeper cells come to light. Calling them lone wolf operations obstructs counter-terror probes and operations.

The 17-hour cycle of Australia’s first major Islamist terrorist experience at home, which began early Monday, Dec. 16, with a hostage siege at the Lindt chocolate café in Sydney’s bustling central business district, will have afforded Australia’s counter-terror services more operational lessons than any studies of past incidents or attacks in far-off places. It could have been shortened had the stream of smart phone and social network messages from the hostages been put to efficient use, or if the Australian commandos had executed their raid sooner and differently.